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menstrual cycle and lupus

I was diagnosed with lupus earlier this week after my first real flare over Easter. I had a second mini flare about a month later.

I chart my cycles and noticed that it was just after I ovulated both times. I know that there has been some debate over the pill (oestrogen in particular) and inducing flares. It would be just after my oestrogen peak that my flares occured. Also, during the first one (I wasn't on prednisone) and it then calmed down a bit only to flare up again with my secondary oestrogen surge. I was just wondering if anyone else finds this.

A lot of people have talked about hormones and flares being connected. I haven't been able to track anything, as I had a hysterectomy when I was 28. (I had heavy periods, endometriosis, and "tissue" growing that they never did figure out why or what...)

Here is an article that I found on the subject of contraceptives causing Lupus flares!
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS - Oral contraceptive use does not cause disease flare in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, or lupus, according to research presented this week at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Scientific Meeting in San Antonio, Texas.
Lupus is a chronic disease that causes inflammation of the joints, skin rashes, low blood counts, kidney disease, or inflammation around the heart and lungs. It affects one in every 2,000 people in the U.S., and 90% of those affected are women, many of who are young and in their child-bearing years.
Despite their many potential health benefits-including effective contraception, control of irregular menstrual cycles and osteoporosis prevention-oral contraceptives that contain estrogen are rarely prescribed to lupus patients for fear that estrogen would stimulate the immune system and worsen the disease. To test the hypothesis that oral contraceptives do not increase the risk of severe flares in lupus patients, researchers tracked 183 premenopausal patients, average 30 years of age, from 15 U.S. sites in a randomized double-blind study. Patients were given oral contraceptives (triphasic ethinylestradiol and norethindrone) for twelve 28-day cycles or a placebo. All were evaluated at months one, two, three, six, nine and 12.
Severe flares were rare, occurring in only seven of the 91 subjects using oral contraceptives as compared to seven of the 92 patients on placebo. (Two of the severe flares in the patients in the oral contraceptives group occurred when the patients were not on the medication.) The frequency of mild/moderate flares was also equivalent: 1.41 flares per person in the oral contraceptive group versus 1.40 flares per person in the placebo group. At the end of the 12-month prospective trial, the only one of its kind to date, the combined flare rate for both therapies was the same, supporting the safe use of oral contraceptive in patients with lupus.
"Despite data in mice and anecdotal reports in humans, our study did not find an increase in any type of flare in women with lupus," said the study's leaders, Jill P. Buyon, MD, Department of Rheumatology, Hospital for Joint Diseases of New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY; and Michelle Petri, MD , MPH, Division of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. "Because estrogen can increase the risk of blood clots, women with lupus who are at high risk of blood clots because of antiphospholipid antibodies were excluded from this study, aand oral contraceptive treatments should not be used in this group of lupus patients."

With reference to menstruation and Lupus flares: For many women, lupus flare-ups occur during the second half of their menstrual cycle, with symptoms disappearing when menstruation starts. Because lupus most often occurs in women of childbearing age, and flare-ups often occur during menstruation, some researchers have sought to uncover the link between lupus and sex hormones, especially estrogen. While progress has been made, the connection between lupus and estrogen remains highly controversial. It is known that people with lupus have elevated levels of estrogen metabolites and low levels of testosterone Women with lupus have shown reduced levels of progesterone.
Certain forms of estrogen are associated with inflammation, degenerative diseases, and estrogen dominance in people with lupus. Estradiol (the strongest form of estrogen) binds to receptors on T-cells and B-cells, increasing activation and survival of those cells, and predisposing women to prolonged attacks on their immune system.

I have read the first one on my travels- but it is a nice refresher and certainly worth a read. The second bit you mentioned I hadn't seen and it peaked my curiosity. I looked up a few online things about it and I thought it is strange how on some sites it says that the worst is in the luteal phase (second half of the cycle) and disappearing during menstruation and others say the worse during menstruation. About as unpredicatable as the disease!!!

I had my oestrogen tested during my luteal phase several cycles ago and they found it to be high! My progesterone was normal though...

Because lupus most often occurs in women of childbearing age, and flare-ups often occur during menstruation, some researchers have sought to uncover the link between lupus and sex hormones, especially estrogen. While progress has been made, the connection between lupus and estrogen remains highly controversial. It is known that people with lupus have elevated levels of estrogen metabolites and low levels of testosterone (Patavino T et al 2001). Women with lupus have shown reduced levels of progesterone (Folomeev M et al 1992).

Certain forms of estrogen are associated with inflammation, degenerative diseases, and estrogen dominance in people with lupus (Cutolo M et al 2004). Estradiol (the strongest form of estrogen) binds to receptors on T-cells and B-cells, increasing activation and survival of those cells, and predisposing women to prolonged attacks on their immune system (Grimaldi CM et al 2002).

Studies examining the role of estrogen in lupus have looked at HRT to see if the use of estrogen and progesterone contributes to lupus. In a study of 351 menopausal women with lupus, subjects were assigned to take either traditional HRT (consisting of conjugated equine estrogen at 0.625 milligrams per day [mg/day] and medroxyprogesterone at 5 mg/day for days 1 through 12 of each month) or a placebo. At the end of the study, the researchers found that the synthetic HRT increased the risk of mild to moderate flare-ups (but not the risk of serious flare-ups) in menopausal women with lupus (Buyon JP et al 2005).

Women with lupus should discuss the risks and benefits of estrogen therapy with their physicians because, based on these findings, there appears to be a risk that estrogen may exacerbate disease. In addition, extra caution is recommended because conventional HRT is associated with hypercoagulability (abnormally increased ability of blood to clot), which is already an issue in people with SLE who have antiphospholipid antibodies (Petri M 2001).